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Prologue Prague and Jerusalem Spiritual Ties between Czechs and Jews It is the ancient Jewish quarter in the heart of the city of Prague that most authentically bears witness to the checkered history of the centuries-old Czech-Jewish coexistence.∞ The echoes of bygone times still reverberate in Josefov, the former Josefstadt, known also as the first district. Countless monuments , synagogues, and the ancient Jewish cemetery with ‘‘the multitude of quaint tombs’’ keep firing the imagination of poetic souls.≤ No wonder that from time immemorial Prague has inspired poets, artists, mystics, and travelers. A most imaginative saga attaches to the founding of the neo-Gothic Altneuschul, the Old-New Synagogue, the construction of which was completed in 1270.≥ Legend has it that its cornerstone was formed from the ruins of the Second Temple brought to Prague by exiles under solemn oath, as the Hebrew term al-tnai (on condition) implies: once the Temple of Jerusalem is restored, these stones will be returned. It was this unique message of continuity that inspired Theodor Herzl in 1899 to name his utopian novel Altneuland (Old new land).∂ Two sculptures created by Czech artists and located in the heart of the Old City symbolize spiritual values and universal greatness. The statue of Moses the Lawgiver, carved by František Bílek in 1937, stands in the tiny romantic park in the vicinity of the Altneuschul.∑ Not far away, in front of the New Town Hall, one encounters Ladislav Šaloun’s striking sculpture of the mysterious High Rabbi Judah ben Bezalel (Liwa) Loew—the Maharal (c. 1525–1609). The artist portrayed the venerated sage in his death, as described by the poet Jaroslav Vrchlický.∏ 2 | prologue There is a distinct symmetry between Czech and Jewish renascence unparalleled between other nations, augmented by the unique role played throughout history by both Prague and Jerusalem as citadels of national struggle and ful- fillment.π The genesis of spiritual rapprochement is exemplified as early as the eleventh to thirteenth centuries in Slavic-Bohemian glosses of Talmudic scholars’ manuscripts, described as ‘‘the earliest traces of written Czech.’’∫ Three hymns have come down from Hussite days preserved in the so-called Jistebnický kancionál.Ω One of these hymns—‘‘Povstaň, povstaň’’ (reminiscent of the famous ‘‘Arise, arise, Jerusalem, great city!’’)—originated in Prague in 1420, evoking the prophet Isaiah’s ‘‘Awake, awake; put on thy strength O Zion’’ (52:1). One should also bear in mind that the translation of the six-part Kralice Bible, a labor of love accomplished in the years 1579–94 by the later followers of Hussitism, the Unity of Bohemian Brethren, was carried out in Moravia in secret because of continuing persecution. More recent studies indicate that the Maharal, while o≈ciating in 1553–73 as chief rabbi of Moravia and head of the famous Yeshiva of Mikulov, located close to Ivančice—as of 1558 the cultural center of the Bohemian Brethren—maintained steady contact with Czech humanists and read the Calvinist writings (in Hebrew translation). The theologian J. B. Čapek refers to ‘‘traits of mutual influences’’ in their works.∞≠ It may thus be surmised that the treatises of the ‘‘Great Rabbi of Prague,’’ especially those dealing with universal aspects—‘‘ideas of nationhood,’’ ‘‘the dilemma of exile’’— as well as educational and pedagogical theories might have generated reciprocal influences.∞∞ In the wake of the 1947 discovery of the Qumran Scrolls shedding new light on the ‘‘Dead Sea Sect,’’ Stanislav Segert discussed the fifteenth-century Unitas Fratrum in a profound study.∞≤ He pointed to the striking analogies in the sacred songs of the Essenes and the hymns of the Bohemian Brethren: the very same passages that once inspired the Maccabees rallied the Hussite ‘‘Warriors of God’’ (Boži bojovníci).∞≥ It transpires that the return from the Babylonian exile inspired the Bible-loving Czechs more than any other people. The Brethren can be credited with the publication of four renditions of Josephus’s Wars of the Jews, in Czech, in the second half of the sixteenth century. However, while expressing deeply felt sympathy for the Jews’ cause, they warned their own people to cling together, citing the internal discord leading to the disastrous fate that befell the Jews.∞∂ The Scriptures were eventually embraced by the spiritual leaders of the Czech reformation, whose hallmark was a new and just social order. As of the sixteenth century the Bible became a centrum securitatis—a source of hope and of freedom of conscience, of yearning...

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